text Translator

site search facility

Custom Search

Psychology

Self-esteem in the athlete

Patrick Cohn explains why athletes must learn to separate self-esteem from their level of
performance in sports

Many athletes and performers I work with often wrongly determine
their self-worth by how successful they feel about their sport. When an athlete
performs well or feels successful, he or she can feel good about him or
herself. However, the opposite is also true: despair and low self-esteem
results when this person does not perform well or view him or herself as a
failure.

Athletes are especially vulnerable to this problem of attaching
self-esteem to one's performances because you are judged by how well you
perform. However, society sends subtle signals that you must achieve in your
sport to feel worthy as a person and that is the trap that many athletes fall
into. In addition, if you are perfectionist, it does not help your self-esteem
because you have such high expectations and are always so critical and hard on
yourself. If you fall into this trap, your emotions, and how you feel about
yourself, are heavily influenced by the perceptions of your performance, which
can naturally vary from day to day. Thus, one day you have self-esteem and the
next day it erodes due to what you think is a poor performance or practice. One
athlete in my seminar stated: "Even if I felt I had a flawless performance, if
I did not get a good reaction or the reaction I was looking for, I feel like a
failure." This statement highlights how out of control one can feel about his
or her success or failure, and thus make negative judgements about one's
performance.

What is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is the regard you hold for yourself. All of you have
a concept of your person (self-concept). If you like your self-concept (who you
think you are), then you have self-esteem. Self-confidence is different.
Self-confidence is the belief in your ability to perform a task - it is not a
judgment. You can have self-confidence, but not self-esteem, and vice versa.
Optimally, you want both high self-confidence in your abilities and
self-esteem.

Self-esteem should be based on who you are as a person instead of
how well you can perform in your sport or how high you go in a sporting career.
Think about this: if you take away the part of you who is an athlete, how would
you describe yourself? What are your personal characteristics that describe
you? This is what self-esteem should be based on. If you feel like you struggle
with self-esteem, have hope. Here are some other ideas about gaining
self-esteem.

Assume the Role

When you are performing, you are in the role of an athlete. You
want to be into that role fully when practicing and performing, but when you
leave the sporting arena, it is time to switch roles into other parts of your
life and let go of judgments. Do not superimpose the role of an athlete (or how
well you can perform) into other areas of your life.

True Friends

People, who are your true friends and family members, love you for
who you are as a person first. They do not judge you based on your performance
or change their view of you because of how good you are as an athlete. If they
do, they are not your true friends. They like you for what you bring to a
relationship as a person, not as an athlete.

Stop the Comparisons

You do yourself harm by making comparisons to other athletes who
you think are better or more talented than you are. This only serves to hurt
your self-esteem and confidence because you put others on a pedestal and
criticize your faults. Everyone is unique. Think about how well you did
compared to your last performance instead of making comparisons to others.

Accept Your Body Image

I know many athletes worry about their body not being the perfect
type for their sport. No one can be perfect or has the perfect body for their
sport. Some people are born with more hand-eye coordination, stamina, or
balance, but that is what makes us unique. Accepting your body image is the
first step to gaining self-esteem. Make the best of what you have by focusing
on your strengths and capabilities as an athlete!

Balance in Life

If your life is sport, you are at greater risk for self-esteem
problems because you have "all your eggs in one basket" and cannot separate the
different roles in you life. Strive to find a balance in your life with your
family, school, friends, and other career aspirations. This will help take the
pressure off your sport and allow your self-esteem to grow.

Be Your Own Best Coach

You are your own worst critic and your best friend wrapped into
one. We are often harder on ourselves than we are on our best friends. What
would you say to a best friend who is feeling depressed? Be at least that
supportive of yourself. Always give yourself words of encouragement and reward
after a performance or practice. Pretend you have the most positive coach on
your shoulder giving words of encouragement.

Define Your Self-Concept Outside of your sport

A good exercise is to define who you are outside your sport. Use
only descriptions that apply to your personal characteristics that you bring to
every aspect of your life. Make a list of these positive characteristics and
review them every day. Do you like what you see? If so, you have self-esteem.
Is there something you do not like? If so, work to change that part of you.

About the Author

Dr. Patrick Cohn works with athletes and teams world wide from a variety of sport backgrounds. As the president and founder of Peak Performance Sports (Orlando, Florida), Dr. Cohn is dedicated to instilling confidence and composure, and teaching effective mental game skills to help athletes, teams and corporate professionals perform at maximum levels.

Related Pages

The following Sports Coach pages provide additional information on this topic: